


The Curse

by awabubbles



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Curse Breaking, Cursed Sam, Dark, M/M, Mythology References, Porn With Plot, Rescue Sex, Wincest - Freeform, mermaid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-07 09:07:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5451137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awabubbles/pseuds/awabubbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean discover a strange monster with the head of a human and the body of a fish. But by the time they figure out what it is, it might be too late for Sam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dean scans the water with frantic eyes. The surface is motionless. Dark. Impenetrable. He can’t see beneath it, but there’s something under there. Something in the depths. Will it surface again? His heart pounds in his ears. Water slops against the boat. He squints. Dead black night and dead black water. Still nothing. Water against the boat. Slop, slop slop.

“Sammy?” Dean calls out for his brother using his childhood name, as if it had special properties, could summon him from the depths. “Sam!”

The stillness is suffocating. But then, thrashing beneath the water! Dean tenses. Something is coming. A body erupts from the surface, gasping for breath.

“Sam!” Dean lunges for his brother, grasps Sam’s flailing hands and begins to pull him back on to the boat. But Sam brings something with him, something from the bottom of the lake. It pulls at his brother from under the water and threatens to drag Sam back under the surface. Dean almost loses him, but now anger poisons his blood. He grips, and pulls, and thinks _mine_.

Two opposing forces. Sam caught in between. But Dean’s claim on his brother isn’t enough to free him. Sam begins to slip.

“Dean!”

Time to change tactics. “Get my gun,” Dean instructs. He feels the weight of his .45, tucked into the back of his pants. “Aim down, and shoot!”

Sam nods, embraces his brother’s torso and removes the gun. “Okay,” Sam says. And Dean lets go.

Sam slips back under the surface. Immediately there’s a dim flash and a burst of energy from beneath: the muted metallic ring of bullets fired under water. Once, twice, three times. And then silence, again. Dean waits. He hates waiting.

Another eruption. Gasping. Sam.

Dean reaches for him. This time it’s easy to pull his brother into the boat. Sam spills over the side bringing only lake water with him, and Dean's gun, which falls from his hands, clattering loudly against the bottom of the boat. Dean scans his brother quickly: head, arms, torso, and legs still in place. Then he stares back down into the water’s depths, searching for any trace of the thing beneath.

They’re both breathing heavily.

“That wasn’t a water spirit,” Sam pants.

“No shit,” Dean agrees. Their boat is packed with salt, and iron. A small military arsenal of everything you might need to send a wayward spirit far, far away. But this thing was made of flesh and bones and jagged teeth.

Then Dean’s nostrils flare, the smell of blood. His own? Or something close. He tears his eyes away from the water, to Sam, holding his side. “You okay?”

“I’ll live.” Which means it hurts.

Dean picks up his .45 and tucks it back into his belt, squats down in front of Sam. “It’s gone now, maybe even dead.”

“Care to test that theory?” Sam gives him a tired smile. His head rests against the inside of the boat. The smell of blood is stronger now.

“You’re the only one who's getting the swimming lesson tonight, Sammy." Dean looks at his brother, scrutinizes. In the dark, he can’t see the damage. He reaches out. His touch is a question and the tips of his fingers are anxious. Heart still pounding in his ears. Fingers curl. Now they’re possessive. Mine. Like that monster was still trying to take something away.

“It’s okay,” Sam says. He understands. They’ve been in reverse positions. “Let’s just go.”

Dean relaxes, withdraws and moves mechanically to start up the outboard motor. It roars to life, churning up the water beneath. Dean looks up to the night sky and navigates them back towards the north end of the lake.

~~

Eight years ago John Winchester came to Pinckney, Michigan to hunt a water spirit. A Nix, that’s what John called it, the handsome mythological equivalent of a mermaid. Dean and Sam read about it in their father’s journal. Their father’s journal, one of very few clues to where their missing father might be.

In their pursuit of John, the Winchester brothers trace John’s steps, finish old cases, discover things their father had left for them to find. So it’s no surprise when they discover a series of disappearances and strange sightings focused around Bruin Lake. They had been there before, in their teens, in a cabin where John left them to hunt the Nix. This, they assume, was like the other cases they had come to expect. Part two of John Winchester’s hunt in Pinckney, Michigan. Part two of the hunt for a Nix.

Another one, it had to be, because John rarely lets a monster escape.

But this case doesn’t play out for them the same way it did for John. Dean guesses he should have seen the clues, more sightings of fish monsters and less of sexy men luring people into their watery graves. Although, one drowning, and a local describing something as “half man, half fish” had supported their first theory. But hindsight is always twenty-twenty. They had been hopping across the country, following after their father, picking up on his old cases: sometimes unfinished, sometimes leaving them with a clue for where he had been. But they weren’t careful this time, had assumed and not done their research (which Sam will never let him live down) and floating out in the middle of Bruin Lake, with a boat full of salt, they had encountered whatever _that_ was.

“Did you get a good look at it?” Dean asks. With a pair of tweezers he pulls out a tooth from Sam’s side. He whistles, dumps it into a mug on the table. It’s less jagged than he would have thought.  Not like a shark. More like a human. But that thing below was no human.

“Not really,” Sam says. He sits on the kitchen table with his shirt rolled up, wincing as the tooth is dislodged. “I was kind of busy trying not to drown.”

“Amateur,” Dean mocks. He scans Sam’s torso, the peppering of teeth marks; the creature’s bite. Painful, but no mortal wounds. He gives Sam a roll of gauze, lets Sam patch himself up but still insists on watching, to make sure it’s done right. Dean remembers when it was his job and his job alone to fix Sam. Not so long ago. Less than eight years. A lot has happened in eight years.

Sam holds a patch against his side and wraps the bandage around his torso. Sam is aware of his brother’s gaze and remembers when he took Dean for granted, his presence eating up his space. But time away at Stanford has cut something between them. Now Sam is acutely aware of where Dean is in relation to him, wary of his brother’s familiarity. So he shuts his eyes and thinks of fish, not brothers.

“It was big,” Sam recounts. “Like, as big as me, maybe bigger. It was some kind of fish, no doubt. But there was also something human about it. I don’t know how to explain it...”

“Human, huh? Was that the part breathing under water, or the part that tried kill you?”

Sam shakes his head. Cuts the gauze. Finishes dressing his wounds. “I shot it three times though,” he concludes. “I think even once in the head.”

Dean nods his approval. He likes it when metal and gunpowder tears through flesh, something physical instead of air like most things supernatural. And he likes it when things die easily, the way he knows humans can. “We’ll search the perimeter tomorrow. It’d make our jobs a lot easier if it crawled on to the shore before it died. Just so we’re sure.”

Sam pulls down his shirt. He stares absently through the kitchen wall like he can see something in the distance. “When is this job ever easy?” he asks

But Dean cracks into a careless grin. Their near-death experience is already behind him. “Hey we ganked that ghost down in Missouri, right? Easy. We’re on a roll now and I’m feelin’ lucky!”

 


	2. Chapter 2

The morning sun is cold. The lake smothers them in a primordial haze. Sam wraps his arms around himself as he and Dean survey the water’s edge.

Splash! Dean slaps the surface with a branch. He peers into the shallows for any sign of their monster but only dredges up dirt. Then he hears his name. Sam is pointing to a trail he’s discovered and it leads from the lake to the forest’s edge. A familiar trail to a Winchester, one where a body has been dragged.

“Blood,” Sam observes, as his brother approaches. Sam squats and brushes his fingertips over the sandy mud; another discovery. “Scales.” They’re on the right track.

Dean follows the trail until the forest’s edge. With the branch he points out another pair of tracks in the mud. Human shoes. “Well at least we know it didn’t crawl away on it’s own,” he says.

They follow the marks through mud and grass until it ends in front of a cabin. One of many rented by out-of-towners. The brothers exchange glances, evaluating their next move.

“U.S. Wildlife?” Dean suggests.

“Just don’t say that we’re Harrison and Ford again,” Sam sighs.

~~

“Hi there, William and Shatner, U.S. Wildlife and Service Agents, can we ask you a few questions?” Dean flashes a fake badge and a winning smile to the pale-faced woman who answers the door. She’s young. College-age. And appears to be alone.

“Questions?”

Right away Sam sees something is wrong. The woman is clearly upset: hair wild, eyes bloodshot. He’s suspicious, but proceeds gently. “We’ve had some strange sightings in and around the lake. Have you seen or heard anything unusual?”

The pale-faced woman shakes her head.

“Yeah well those drag marks leading to your front door say otherwise.” Dean plays the bad-cop roll with ease. But he pushes too far. The woman bursts into tears.

Sam shoots Dean an accusatory look, but they both use it an excuse to enter the cabin. Dean absently comforts her, and nods at Sam that this is his chance. But then pale-faced woman surprises them again, gripping the lapels of Dean’s jacket.

“I found him like that this morning! He’s not an animal! He’s my mother’s husband!”

Dean looks mildly concerned as she tugs at him.

“Miss, it’s okay, we’re just here help, honest,” Sam says. He touches her shoulders and gently steers her away from his brother. She sniffles loudly but calms down.

“He’s my mother’s husband,” she repeats. “He disappeared a week ago. And then I found him this morning like...that!” She points down the hall with a pale, slender finger.

Sam and Dean follow the direction of her finger and hear water running in another room. They walk down the hallway and discover their monster sitting in this woman’s bathtub. The spigot is on. Cold water is running over it’s scales. There’s a hole in it’s head. The smell of death fills their nostrils.

“Is that it?” Dean asks.

Sam nods stiffly.

And Dean admits that Sam was right. It was human. Or, the head was, at least. Male, graying hair. Lips, eyes, teeth. White, veiny skinny: human nonetheless. But that’s where the similarities end. Past the head, beneath the neck it was a fish. A gigantic fish. With a long, winding tale that coiled tightly inside the tub and then spilled out over the side. It was covered in scales, like the kind that Sam had found by the lake, beautiful, iridescent. They caught the morning sunlight filtered through the small bathroom window and scattered a small rainbow across the walls. Beautiful and grotesque.

As they stand and stare, Sam sees a medallion wrapped around it’s neck. Old, silver, and with an inscription carved into the surface. It was difficult to make out any other details, but Sam immediately knows the medallion is important to their case. He glances at his brother for confirmation, but Dean is looking back at the woman, who now stands behind them, staring into the bathroom.

“I used a toboggan sled to get him inside,” she explains blankly. “I didn’t want anyone to see him like this…”

Sam clears his throat. “This...is your mother’s husband?” Sam asks.

“Did she know she was married to sushi?” Dean retorts.

“His name is Gerald. He’s not my father, my mother remarried. And he wasn’t like this when that happened.”

“Just...recently?” Sam asks.

“He disappeared a week ago. And then, this morning…”

Sam and Dean stare again. They’ve seen a lot of strange things. There’s something particularly nightmarish about this.

“That must have been quite a shock,” Sam leads.

She looks at him with wide eyes. “Not really. I knew he would be punished, eventually.”

Sam and Dean look at each other again.

“Punished?” Sam parrots.

“He said he was in love with me. It was disgusting! Thirty years older and my step-father! I told him he sickened me. That he was wicked for thinking like that. I was scared to tell my mother what he’d said. But I knew you couldn’t just be like that without God intervening.” And then she begins to cry again.

Sam tugs at his brother’s shoulder and pulls him aside. “We need to get this thing out of here,” he whispers. “Did you see that amulet around it’s neck?”

Dean nods, and grunts. He turns from Sam and touches the woman’s shoulder again. “Hey, it’s okay. He can’t hurt you now. Ssssh. Shh. See, everything's goin to be fine. Just a few more questions. C'mere, but let’s go into the living room. I’ll even make some coffee. How about that?” Dean offers his hand hand and the pale-faced woman is passively lead from the bathroom.

Alone, Sam looks over the creature with an analytical eye, committing it to memory. Then he leans in to study the necklace around its scaly neck. There's a symbol of a fish cast in silver with what Sam assumes is a poorly drawn head and around the symbol is some writing he doesn't recognize. Old writing. Sam's curiosity is piqued. He likes strange artifacts like this, the kind that requires a little research, a little digging. Carefully, he removes the necklace around its neck and shoves it into his pocket, joining Dean back in the living room. He finds the pale-faced woman sitting on the couch and Dean in the kitchen crushing pills into a fine powder.

“ _What are you doing_?!” Sam whispers sharply, stepping in front of Dean to hide him.

“Gonna let her sleep,” Dean says simply. “She’s in shock right now. Doesn’t know how to accept any of this. Believe me, this is the kind thing to do. When she wakes up she’ll think it was all a bad dream. Then we drag Ariel out of here and throw him in a shallow grave.”

Sam bites his cheek. He doesn’t like the idea, but he understands the necessity of it. “Do you always keep drugs on hand?” he quips, feeling helpless about the way this case is already slipping out of their control.

Dean scowls. He knows Sam is silently scorning him, and doesn’t think he deserves it. “Only on our date nights, Sammy,” he mocks. And stirring the mixture into a fresh mug of coffee he brushes past his brother, into the living room.

“Thank you,” the pale-faced woman says, as she accepts the mug. She takes a long drink. It appears to ground her.

“Where did Gerald get the necklace he was wearing?” Sam asks.

She frowns. “I don’t know,” she answers. “I’d never seen it before.”

“Was he acting weird before he disappeared?” Dean follows up. “Did he get a haircut? Change his diet? Join a cult?”

She shakes her head at all of these. The suggestion of occult activity doesn’t surprise her. But then again Dean sees the sleeping pills are starting to work, or maybe it's warm hug of coffee slipping down her throat. “Just saying those awful things,” she says.

“You’re safe now,” Sam says gently. “Everything’s going to be okay now, I promise.”

“Yeah, you never have to see that jackass again,” Dean adds. “Or us, for that matter.”

“But I don’t understand what this has to do with Wildlife Service…” The young woman tips forward, finally succumbing to sleep. Dean catches her mug, and gently rests her head against the couch.

“It would have been nice if she could have answered a few more questions,” Sam says.

Dean scoffs. “And make your job _easy_?”

~~~

It’s a half-mile walk from this cabin to theirs. Dean picks up the Impala and they wrap the body in a sheet, shove it into the trunk. Then they drive out to a neighboring county, more remote, share a slice of pie, and under the cover of darkness dig a hole and dump the body inside.

“Should we burn it?” Sam asks, shovel in-hand.

“Not unless you’re afraid of it’s ghost,” Dean says. Then he turns to his brother, puzzled. “Do you think fish ghosts haunt people on land, or can they only do it on water?”

Sam smiles and rolls his eyes. He stares down into the hole, at the paisley-print sheet they took to wrap up the body. “I shot him,” he reflects. “Right in the head.”

“It,” Dean corrects. “And I would have shot it myself for taking a chunk out of my little brother. Don’t kid yourself Sam, if it was human - and we don’t know for sure what it is or how it got like that- it stopped being human a while ago. Plus, you heard her, he was a creep. Hell, you might have put him out of his misery. People like that, you know, they’re bad seeds to begin with.”

“Maybe,” Sam says, and changes the subject. “Dad would box us both in the ears, if he knew how bad we messed this up.”

“Are you kidding?” Dean dismisses. “We killed the monster, saved the girl (sort of). So now we do a little research, figure out what it was, write it down, and call it a day.”

Dean smiles at him, beaming confidence. Sam has his doubts, but his brother is easy to believe in. “Don’t smile like that while you’re standing over a grave,” Sam chides. “You look like a serial killer.”

Dean laughs, and they bury the monster together.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“Dudefish,” Dean suggests. “ _Manmaid_ ? How about _Ugly Disney Princess_? UDP for short.”

Sam smiles but shakes his head. “You’re not helping.”

“Hey. I happen to be good at this,” Dean defends, waving his second beer of the night at Sam. “You know those rabbits that turned out to be vampires: Vamp-bits. I told Bobby, and this hunter out west, you remember Roy, he was up against the same thing. Bobby tells him their Vamp-bits? _Bam_! It’s official. I named a monster.”

“You’re a true legend.”

Dean rolls his eyes, twists the cap off of his beer. “Hey why don’t you call it a night, Sammy. It’s 3 am. The internet will still be there if you give your dick a rest.”

Sam ignores him and Dean petulantly tosses his bottle cap at Sam’s head. It bounces off Sam’s skull and clatters to the floor.

“I found it,” Sam finally announces, sitting back with a sigh and turning the screen to Dean. “It’s the symbol imprinted on that medallion, look.”

Dean kicks away the bottle cap, and leans on Sam’s chair to get a peek.

“It’s a Syrian goddess called Atargatis,” Sam explains. “See here she’s depicted as a fish with a human head. According to legend she fell in love with a young boy, got impregnated, and out of shame threw herself into the river where her body transformed into a fish, but her head remained human.”

Dean whistles. “Damn. She doesn’t even get to be the sexy kind of mermaid.”

The original necklace is on the table, next to Sam. He picks it up and flips over the fish-god symbol. There’s something else carved into the back. “I think it’s in Arabic, but I haven’t been able to translate it yet.”

There was a glint in his brother’s eye. The thrill of the hunt, for Sam, was all in the details.

“Nerd,” Dean says warmly, swallowing a mouthful of beer.

Sam grins up at him. “It matches our monster pretty well. It’s no coincidence he was wearing this thing around his neck.”

Dean plucks it from Sam’s hands, laying it out on the table. “Then are you sure we should even be handling it?” he asks, wary.

Sam scratches at his neck, and turns back to the screen. “I had to bring it with, so I could figure out the markings.” Which is not what Dean asked.

“I still don’t see the connection,” Dean says. “Between the guy who had the hots for his daughter-in-law and Estergart-”

“-Atargatis.” Sam corrects.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “I mean. Wouldn’t be the first time someone got freaky with their kin, huh? It’s not like all of _them_ turned into UDPs.”

Sam stares at him, confused.

“Ugly Disney Princesses,” Dean explains.

Sam rolls his eyes. “I don’t know anything for sure except that this necklace is the key.” He reaches out and cups the thing in his hand, staring at it like it could reveal its secret at any moment.

Dean frowns. He’s already decided he doesn’t want Sam touching that thing anymore. He’s about to yank it out of his grip when he notices some irritation on the back of his kid brother’s hands. Sam scratches his neck again, and Dean sees the same redness there.

“What’s this, poison ivy or something?” Dean holds his brother’s wrist, and pulls back his sleeve. The redness extends far up his arm as well. “Jesus.”

Sam pulls his arm away, rolls up the sleeve. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” he dismisses.

Dean sees Sam scratching at his arms and neck helplessly. “There’s hydrocortisone in the med kit. I can get it if you want.” And then he playfully punches his brother in the shoulder. “Hey remember the last time you got this stuff bad? Yeah. It was here wasn’t it? There was a patch of poison ivy out back, and you fell into it trying to jump off the porch.”

Dean chuckles at the memory, sitting across from his brother.

Sam shifts so they’re legs don’t touch. “No. You dared me to race, and then you pushed me.”

Dean smirks. “Really? I don’t remember it like that.” He leans his head back on the chair, stares at the ceiling fan going round and round and round. “I don’t remember much about that weekend.” Dean furrows his brows, tries to concentrate. But there's a roadblock in his memory. It diverts him to the right, or to the left and those two days are mostly blank. But that doesn’t bother Dean. He doesn’t spend  much time reflecting on the past, so he gives up easily. It must not be worth remembering.

“I think about that weekend a lot,” Sam says quietly. His eyes don’t leave the laptop. “I decided to apply to Stanford after it.”

Dean stops breathing for a second. Ow. He sits up straighter and gives his brother a look. _Where the hell did that come from_? But Sam never meets his eyes. Just keeps working and Dean is left sitting there, suffering from his brother’s careless cruelty. He wants to chastise Sam but his guilt prevents him. He knew he must have had some role to play in driving his kid brother away, but he didn’t know the deed had a specific date. Even worse, it was a date he couldn’t remember.

Sam shuts his laptop and announces he’s going to take a shower. Dean feels a wave of panic as Sam walks past him.

“ _Sam_.”

Sam stops, turns to look at him expectantly. But Dean doesn’t know what to say now, what to ask. Sam doesn’t even sense that anything’s wrong.

“Do you need to use the bathroom or something?”

Dean feels like a fly, swatted away. He wants to say he’s sorry. He wants to ask what the fuck is Sam’s problem. He wants to shout. He wants to fight. He wants to beg. But he doesn’t know how to communicate any of that. So he doesn’t. He sits there and says nothing until Sam walks away. And he lets Sam walk away.

The bathroom door closes. The water pours out. Dean slams his fist on the kitchen table.

That’s his problem, he shouldn’t have let Sam walk away.


	4. Chapter 4

Sam and Dean track the amulet to an antique store on the only main street in town. A tiny hole-in-the-hole wall with Persian rugs hanging from floor to ceiling, it advertises its specialty in “exotic objects”, a lure for the bland Midwesterner since it sold the same plastic Buddhas and cheap peace signs you could find anywhere. 

It's dark. It stinks of incense. A small bell strung to the door announces their presence.

“I hate those bells,” Dean mutters. The pseudo-criminal in him prefers to go unnoticed.

They look for someone to talk to, but the counter in back is unattended. They peruse the shelves instead: cheap fabric, plastic trinkets, and some glass ‘sculptures’ Dean’s pretty sure could double as bongs. Usually Dean loves knick-knacks, can’t resist re-stacking candles into perilous towers, skimming through postcards and naming all the places he’s been, or finding his and his brother’s name on those key-chains they always sell to tourists. But today he’s too distracted. Sam’s rash has gotten worse, his skin is blistering, and the image of his kid brother scratching himself is a ghost that Dean keeps seeing in the corner of his eye.

“Would you quit it?” Dean scolds, swatting Sam’s hand away from his neck. “You’re gonna make it bleed!”

Sam looks like an injured puppy. He stops scratching his neck but starts scratching his arms instead. “I can’t help it,” he insists.

“I _told_ you to use the hydrocortisone.”

“I did! But it didn’t help.”

Dean rolls his eyes. Did Sam really live on his own for four years? Sometimes he has a hard time believing it.

Then a tall woman steps out from behind a long, shimmering curtain. She has dark skin and a crooked nose. She looks at the two of them suspiciously as if she expects them to steal the nearest fat-bellied Buddha and run out screaming. When they don't, she puts on a moderately polite smile and asks if she can help.

"Yeah actually, you can," Dean says. He walks up to the counter and removes a handkerchief from his pocket. Unfolding it, he holds out the necklace from their monster. "Have you seen this amulet before?"

The woman smiles and touches the symbol of the fish-goddess warmly. Then, thinking better of it, she withdraws. “I don’t do returns,” she says gravely, and points to a sign taped to the counter with the same message.

"But you _did_ sell it from here?" Sam confirms. His fingers are bawled into fists by his side but Dean notes, at least he’s not scratching. “We don’t want to return it, we just want to ask about it.”

“And about the guy you sold it to,” Dean adds.

“It is a symbol of love,” the owner says. “A symbol of fertility, the Syrian Venus before the Romans absorbed her. The man I sold this to was looking for love,” she smiles coyly at Dean. “Are _you_ looking for love?”

Dean ignores her last question. "Did that guy tell you he was in love with his _daughter-in-law_?" 

The owner looks shocked, puzzled, and then she laughs. "Ah! That would not end very good for him then."

“Why is that?” Sam asks.

“Eh,” she dismisses. “How would you say? Old wives tale. Women like me, we tell them all the time.”

“So tell _us_ ,” Dean insists.

The woman smiles knowingly at him and turns over the coin. "This is your word for shame," she explains. "It is said, all those that bear her inscription, will prosper and flourish if it brings them happiness. But if it brings them shame, she will drag them down into the depths with her. To prevent others from making her same mistake."

Dean glances at Sam. His brother has grown pale.

“I can see why the Romans preferred Venus,” Dean says. “Hell, me too. She was naked all the time, right?”

The owner says something in a language Dean doesn’t understand. "No respect!" She huffs. "The man I sold this to wanted love, but instead, he desires something shameful and he is doomed to be visited by the goddess." She gives them a crooked smile. "Or the police."

"How do you know so much about this?" Sam asks.

"Syria is my home country," she says proudly. "There my history is respected. Here..."she waves to the amulet. "I sell for twenty dollars." Then she looks at Sam and his red skin curiously. “And for five I could give you some lotion for that rash.”

"Is that from Syria too?" Dean smirks.

"No, the dollar store."

 

~~~~

 

They leave the store and walk up the block to where Dean parked the car.

"Great!” Dean says. “The freaking thing’s cursed. I knew we should have chucked it into the lake when we had the chance!" He throws open the Impala's door and gets into the driver’s side.

Sam follows behind him quietly. “Do you think there’s any possibility one of us could be cursed now?” He's scratching at his neck again. He winces. There’s blood on his fingertips.

"I told you you'd make it bleed." Dean says softly. "Here," he removes the handkerchief from around the amulet and gently dabs at the broken skin.

Sam sits there passively as Dean cleans the blood. He stares out the window, and thinks over what the woman from the store just said. “Dean?”

Something catches Dean’s eye. He stares curiously at the open blister. “Yeah?”

Sam’s voice shakes. "I’m starting to think that. Maybe. I might be-”

"Hang on," Dean interjects. He shifts closer to Sam, tilts his brother’s head to the side. Sunlight catches the edge of something under Sam’s skin.

Dean removes a knife from his back pocket and switches open the blade.

Sam’s eyes widen. “ _Dean_?”

“Just stay still, kiddo. You’ve got a little something, but I’ll get it out for you.”

“Get _what_ out?”

Dean squeezes Sam’s shoulder gently and raises the flat of the blade to the open wound. “Gonna sting a bit,” he warns, sliding the knife under the skin. With a quick flick he removes the object.

“Got it,” he announces.

Sam gasps, as if he were holding his breath. He presses the handkerchief against his neck, and they both stare at the thing balanced on the tip of his knife. Dean wipes the blood from it with his thumb. It catches the sunlight and glistens: beautiful, iridescent.

“It’s a scale,” Sam says. 

The edict hits them both like a ton of bricks.

Dean sits there staring at the scale, and the blood, willing it not to be what it is. Willing it not to mean what it means. That his brother, somehow, is cursed. That he's growing fish scales. That he's going to end up like that monster in the bathtub. When his brother says his name again, Dean snaps. He kicks open the car door and bursts onto the empty street, pacing from one end of the car to the other.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He shouts, slapping the hood of the car. But by now the anger has left him, leaving the fear behind, leaving him paralyzed. 

Sam slips out of the passenger side. Hair obscures his face. “Dean.”

Dean shakes his head. “It doesn’t mean anything. It could be something else, I don't know. But it doesn't-”

" _Dean_.”

Panic grips Dean’s chest. For a minute he can’t breathe, as if he were drowning. He looks across the hood. “Sammy.”

Sam tries to smile. Tries not to make things worse. “We'll just have to find a way to reverse it, right?"

Dean nods. He knows he has to be rational about this, treat it like any other case. Letting thoughts of Sam cloud his head makes him worthless. But then he remembers what that girl said about her father-in-law disappearing for a week. “There’s not much time,” he chokes. Dean grips his jacket, and feels his phone. “We should call Bobby!” he says, and begins to pull out the phone to look through his contacts.

“No,” Sam says firmly. “Dean, don’t.”

Dean’s thumb hovers over the call button. 

“He doesn’t need to know about this,” Sam says. Which is the shittiest reasoning Dean’s ever heard. “It’s not that bad. Not _yet_.”

“Not yet. What if I’m next? I handled it too.” Dean says. “And we can’t _both_ wear clams for bras, Sammy. I checked, they don’t come in my size.”

Sam scoffs. He doesn’t appreciate Dean’s humor right now. “I really...don’t think you have to worry."

“Why not?” Dean blusters. “I’ve done _plenty_ of stuff to be ashamed of. I can name four right now: in the bathroom stall with Mary, totally wasted with Jane, on her parent’s boat with-”

“-that’s not love.” Sam cuts off impatiently. He swings open the passenger side door. “C’mon, we should go."

The car door slams. Dean feels an uneasy rocking under his feet. He’s on that boat again, in the middle of the lake, and there’s something under the surface, pulling at Sam, threatening to drown him. Dean is holding tight, but it never feels tight enough to save him. 


	5. Chapter 5

“And what do _you two_ knuckleheads want?”

Dean smirks as Bobby answers his phone. Bobby is a long-time family friend, tough as nails, and with a sense of humor dryer than the Arizona desert, but still a pillar of support for Sam and Dean when they needed it. And Dean can’t think of a time he needed it more.

“Just checking to see if you’re still alive, old man,” he shoots back.

“Hardy-har-har,” Bobby says, voice crackling over the poor reception.

Glancing over his shoulder, Dean sees the cabin window is open. He knows Sam is inside, researching. He walks away from the window, lowering his voice. “Actually Bobby, I’ve got some questions for you.”

Then Dean explains the curse to Bobby. He’s open about the details of the case they’ve been working, but he neglects to mention that Sam is in trouble. He doesn’t want Bobby to get worried about them just yet. Plus, he figures if he does that Sam won’t have any reason to get angry at him. Not that he plans on telling Sam about this anyways.  

After Dean is done with story time, he waits for Bobby’s opinion. On the outside Bobby is an old grizzled man with a taste for good whiskey. But in reality, Bobby’ is also one of the sharpest hunters they know. The hunter has a collection of books on the supernatural that makes him an expert on everything from ghosts, to witches, to obscure monsters in children’s fairy tales. His take on this case could be invaluable.

“Well you’ve probably handled a dozen cursed objects by now,” Bobby explains, “but they passed right under your radar cause they weren’t meant for you. See, you got all levels of curses: from swearing to cursed burial grounds.”

“Wait, hang on,” Dean interrupts. “Swearing, Bobby. _Seriously_?”

“Why do you think they call them _curse words_ , boy?” Bobby huffs. “Once upon a time some of the gods out there actually took offense to their names being damned. Lucky for us though it’s been radio silence for a few centuries, or else I’d have been struck dead a long _got-damn_ time ago.”

“Huh,” Dean says.“But ‘ _fuck_ ’s still okay, right?”

“Don’t be a _dumbass_ ,” Bobby grumbles. “Now, from the sound of it, what you boys got is a picky curse. Not like those cursed objects that affect everybody who touches them. These have a certain kind of person in mind. Fer example cursed coins for the greedy. Or cursed jewels for the vain. Even heard about cursed drawers for cheatin’ husbands. Not pretty.”

“I’ll stick to cash, credit cards, and one-night stands then,” Dean concludes.

“This curse is for some poor fool in love,” Bobby continues. “ _Happy_ an’ in love, nothing happens. You probably think this fish goddess did something for ya, you give her thanks, have lots of babies. But if it’s the kind of thing you shouldn’t be droolin’ over in the first place, and you got this little symbol on you, then, I guess she’s got something to say about that.”

“Uh-huh,” Dean says. “But what about _reversing_ the curse? What am I supposed to do, gank this bitch?”

Bobby scoffs. “ _You_ don’t have to do nothing, boy. Your creep’s already dead an’ buried, an’ I say good riddance. Toss that amulet in the lake and _move on_.”

Dean scuffs his shoes in the dirt, glances back at the cabin. “Okay. But let’s just say... _hypothetically_ , if you wanted to get rid of the curse, what would you do?”

“I’d toss the amulet in the lake and move on.” Bobby repeats.

Dean stands at the end of the driveway feeling like an idiot. He’s not sure what he else he has to do for Bobby’s advice short of confessing. But, luckily, Bobby decides to humor him.

“ _Well,_ ” the old man drawls. “If I was gonna waste my time with it, I wouldn’t go after some fish-goddess. Curses have their own life, and you gotta play by their rules. Which means you got three options: cancel it out, give it to someone else, or run like hell. In this case, suppose your best bet is to cancel it out.”

“Yeah. Okay. _But how_?”

“Figure out why your so got-damn unlucky and fix it before it’s too late. In your case, your pervert had it in his head he was gonna go all Lolita on his daughter-in-law. So.”

“So?” Dean presses.

“ _Hell if I know, Dean_ . Therapy. Or maybe a good slug in the face. Whatever gets the damn message through. Anyways like I said it don’t matter, _right_?”

Dean stares at the sky making an appeal to heaven. As usual, no one answers. “Yeah...yeah, you’re right Bobby. Listen, I appreciate it.”

“Somethin’ _else_ you want to tell me, Dean?”

Dean draws a hand over his face. He hesitates, he doesn’t know why. Bobby is a friend, no, family. And Sam is in trouble. They’re stumbling here, trying to figure out what to do. Dean should just spill the beans already. And yet, he feels strangely compelled to keep his distance.

“Have you heard from Dad?” Clever, Dean thinks. A smokescreen, obscuring one problem with another.

“Know I would have called you if I had,” Bobby sighs.

There’s suspicion there. Dean _doesn’t_ know that. He knows Bobby would tell them if John was dead, but this limbo that John has his sons in, Dean doesn’t trust anyone but blood. And, remembering that, he feels justified in keeping the truth about Sam away from Bobby. At least for now.

“Yeah, okay. Well, I’ll call if anything develops.”

Dean hangs up the phone. His fingers linger on the call button. He thinks, for just a moment, about calling John. But what would he say? Hi Dad, I managed to fuck Sam up for you so if you’re not ten feet under can you maybe swing by and save our asses? No. Dean blames himself for getting Sam into this, and he’s set on finding a way out.

Dean puts the phone away, grabs two plastic bags from the back of the car, and heads into the cabin. “Dinner,” he calls out.

Sam looks up from his laptop. He’s sitting on the couch next to a small mountain of books. His neck, hands, and arms are heavily wrapped with bandages.

“Here,” Dean says, handing his brother salad in a plastic container. He taps the brightly colored label. “It even says _gourmet_.”

Sam smiles. It lasts as long as it takes for Dean to sit down on a chair across from him. When he looks up, Sam is miserable again.

“Thanks,” his little brother says, setting the Tupperware aside. “But I’m not that hungry right now.”

The plastic bag in Dean’s hand is weighed down with a cold cheeseburger he was gong to microwave, but Dean realizes he’s not hungry either. Neither of them have had much appetite since discovering Sam’s curse two days ago. All they’ve been doing since then is researching, reading book after book, till they’re eyes practically bled. In between fruitless searching Dean is going through the motions-breakfast, lunch, dinner- because there’s not much else he can do while he watches Sam get worse and worse.

Dean sets his plastic bag aside and drags a tome on to his lap from a nearby stack of books. He flips it open and stares at the page, but there’s no use in trying to read now. Two solid days of this and the words are starting to blend together. Dean shuts the book again and watches his brother studiously scan line after line of information on his laptop. He looks just as exhausted.

“Beer?” Dean suggests.

Sam suddenly goes boneless, melting into the couch like he’s been waiting for permission to stop. But he doesn’t want beer. “Whiskey,” he corrects.

Dean grins big at him. “You got it.”

In the kitchen, Dean grabs two mugs, moderately clean, and unscrews the top off a bottle of Jack. He pours a heavy dose into each mug, and thinks about how Sam and him ought to proceed now.

 _Therapy_ . Bobby had joked about that. But the point was the same. Dean doesn’t know why this curse is after Sam, and not him. He doesn’t know why it’s after Sam _at all_. So if Dean wants to know, and if knowing helps reverse it, then he was going have to ask Sam some personal questions.

Dean grimaces, caps the whiskey. And that sounded about as fun as pulling teeth.

Dean guesses this whole fiasco has something to do with the four years his kid brother was away at college, because that’s the only time Dean can’t account for, the only time Sam could have developed some foolish, love-sick desires. But they never talk about Stanford unless Dean’s making a joke about college girls or frat drinking. And they don’t talk about his dead girlfriend, either. They had a heavy moment where Dean insisted Sam stop blaming himself, and then it dropped.

Does Sam’s feelings about Jess’s death make him a candidate for this curse? Dean doesn't know for sure. But if finding out means he can help his brother, he has to try. So by the time Dean hands a whiskey-filled mug to Sam, he has a loosely-formed plan in his head, which went like this: get Sam stinking drunk.

His plan gets off to a great start, too, when Sam starts chugging his whiskey like it was water.

“Woah!” Dean says. Surprised, and a little impressed. “Slow down there, sparky.”

Sam swallows, gasps a little as the burn travels down his throat, and then sits back panting. “Sorry,” he apologizes with a loose grin. “I needed that.”

Dean smirks. Maybe plying Sam for information would be easy. “More where that came from,” he says, handing the bottle over.

Sam refills his mug nearly to the brim.

“How you feelin’?” Dean asks.

“Shitty,” is Sam’s answer. “We’ve been at this for days, but we’re not any closer to finding an answer than when we started. Dean. I’m starting to think…”

“That we should call Bobby?” Dean says hopefully. If Sam says yes, he can cut to the chase and blame all the personal questions on Bobby’s advice.

But Sam frowns and shakes his head. “No, I already know what he’s going to say. He’s going to dissect the reason I’m cursed, and you’re not. He’s going to say that’s how we stop this. But that’s not going to help at all.”

Dean is a little dumbfounded that his brother already knows what Bobby told him, and a little annoyed he’s already dismissed it. “You _know_ it’s not going to help?” Dean challenges. “How can be sure?”

“ _Because I’ve tried_!”

Dean’s taken aback by the agony in Sam’s voice.

“I know what it is, and I’ve tried to get over it,” Sam says. He lowers his head, hair obscures his face. “I thought I had. But I guess this thing found me out, huh?”

Sam drains his second glass. Dean starts to worry that this plan of his wasn’t such a good idea.

“Is it Jess?” Dean blurts out. He’s never had any patience for subtlety. “Cause we’ve had this conversation before, Sam. If you’re blaming yourself-”

“It’s not Jess,” Sam says. “Guilt isn’t part of the equation, remember? It’s shame. But I loved Jess. I was happy. I have no shame about that.”

Happy. That cuts Dean somewhere deep. He doesn’t care if Sam was fucking some cute Californian blonde till he was blue in the face, but he was doing it away from him, and away from Dad. Sam says he was happy and Dean knows he wasn’t apart of that equation. Dean’s never been happier to have Sam back in his car, cruising across the US, saving lives. But for Sam, happiness is somewhere far, far away from him. That’s a punch in the gut to Dean. And suddenly, all of the pain and resentment of Sam’s move to Stanford washes over him like a wave.

“Well, that’s just great then. Glad we cleared that up. Wouldn’t want thoughts of dad and I ruining your perfect little _college bubble_.”

Sam grimaces, like the whiskey has turned sour.

“And hey I know it’s not about leaving us, either,” Dean continues. “Cause obviously you don’t have an _ounce_ of shame in that!”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Sam warns.

But this only incites Dean. He stands and kicks over some books. “Don’t what? Talk about your four years of total bliss? Cause I’m just trying to understand this Sammy. Help me understand. You’re turning into a fish. And why? Because of something _Dad and I did_?”

Sam hangs his head and says nothing. Dean can see there’s no anger in Sam, just sadness. It makes his own anger fizzle, leaving him empty and hollow. He realizes he stepped over a line, and immediately retreats. Dean leaves Sam on the couch and exits the back door, leading out onto the porch. The cold night air sobers him. He takes a deep breath, and leans on the railing, looking out onto the lake.

Dean’s tired of this runaround. He’s tired of Sam’s time at Stanford being a wall he can’t broach. And it’s not even that Sam left, or at least not entirely. Dean understands the urge to get out of this life, and if anybody could be happy, he would wish that for Sam. But he resents Stanford for creating a hole in their lives. Sam might be riding with him, but sometimes, it’s still like their miles apart, and Dean wishes desperately that things could go back to the way they were before. Before all the secrets, when they knew everything about each other. But it’s a selfish desire, and a hopeless one too, because Dean sees Sam is perfectly happy keeping him at arm’s length.

Dean drinks his whiskey. His stomach is tied into knots.

“That weekend. We raced, out there in the lake.”

Sam’s voice. The hairs on the back of Dean’s neck stand up in response.

“I won, of course.”

Dean turns around to see Sam standing in the doorway. It’s a surprise, he expected Sam to mope for the rest of the night. “Bullshit,” Dean mutters, he’s never lost a race to Sam.

"It's true. You were tired out from some training you'd done earlier. I had to go back and help you swim to shore."

"And Santa Claus flew out of my butt to grant you three wishes,” Dean huffs. “I've never heard a more ridiculous fairy tale."

Sam laughs gently. His face is flushed. Dean guesses he might already by drunk. "How would you know? You don't remember."

"I would remember that."

"No. You wouldn't."

Dean narrows his eyes. Sam wants something right now, but he doesn’t know what.

"I bet if we did it again you'd remember."

"Race?" Dean asks. He sizes up his younger brother: pink-cheeked and swaying. "You're in no shape for that."

Sam slams his empty mug on the railing like a judge’s gavel. He removes his shirt, his shoes, and starts to climb over the railing with a stubborn frown. “You’re just afraid you’re going to lose again,” Sam says, as he jumps off the edge, avoiding that patch of poison ivy.

Dean scoffs. He has no idea what’s gotten into Sam. “First of all, I have _never_ lost to you. And second, you’re drunk, dehydrated, and you shouldn’t be going out for a joy swim when you’re like _this_ ,” Dean says, motioning to the bandages wrapped tightly across Sam’s skin.

His little brother looks up at him and smirks. “That’s right. I’m half fish now aren’t I?” he says, and begins slowly unraveling the bandages.

Dean watches, sickened but fascinated as Sam reveals the scales coating his body. Shiny, iridescent. To Dean, it’s grotesque, inhuman. But Sam looks down at himself and seems satisfied with the transformation.

“Do you think I can swim even faster now?” he asks, and with a playful twirl, he runs towards the lake.

“Sam!” Dean calls instinctively, an ingrained reaction, whenever he’s unsure about his brother’s safety.

But Sam is careless, he waves at Dean and laughs. “I’ll race you to the other side and back. Loser has to do laundry for a month!”

Suddenly Dean has an investment in winning. He climbs over the railing, falls, stumbling to the water’s edge while removing his shirt and kicking off his shoes. Finally, he dives into the water and starts swimming.

Sam has a half-minute advantage, but his kid brother is also drunk, and out of practice. They reach the other side at the same time, and start back. Heading closer to shore, Dean even pulls ahead. He's sure he has this stupid race in the bag when Sam gets a sudden burst of energy. They're tied for a split second, and then Sam starts to take the lead like he's some kind of dolphin!

Dean is outraged. He was supposed to win this, easy! But Sam’s so far ahead now, he’s practically kicking Dean in the face. But Dean’s not going down that easily (and he’s definitely not doing laundry for a month) so he suddenly veers off course, grabs his brother by the ankles and dives.

He hears Sam’s short gasp of surprise before they’re both submerged.

Under the surface, they spin, flesh and water. Dean dives until his lungs grow tight from want of air, and then, finally, he lets Sam go, swimming back to the surface. He emerges, breathes deep, and, seeing the shore so close, he begins swimming to victory. But he doesn’t get very far. Sam swims up underneath him, pulls the same trick, and they both go under again. Twisting. Struggling for dominance. Until they both have to breath again, separate, swim back to the surface.

The first thing Dean hears is Sam’s laugh. “I can’t believe you,” he says. “You’re the sorest loser I’ve ever met.”

“I haven’t lost!” Dean insists. The shore is still thirty feet away.

“But you were going to.”

“I was not.”

“So you pulled me under.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Just like you did last time.”

Dean is silent. The water sloshing against their bodies is loud to his ears. He has a strange feeling of déjà vu, like there’s something big stirring beneath the water.

“Sammy.” Dean chokes on his brother’s name. He’s scared. He doesn’t know why. He can’t remember what happened eight years ago and, suddenly, he doesn’t want to. Every self-preservation instinct in him, is telling him to bolt, to get out of the water. “C’mon kiddo, let’s get out of here.”

He raises his arm, to start swimming back, but Sam grabs his wrist.

“ _Dean_."

“Sam. Stop it. C’mon. Let me go. Sammy? Sam!” Dean begins to panic. There’s something under the water, he’s sure of it. A beast, asleep for all of these years but now it’s awake. It’s awake and it’s coming for him. “Sam, let me go. Sam! God-damnit!”

Sam’s grip is firm. “You want to know why I’m like this?  _Then let me show you._ ”

And then, Sam slips under the water. He’s gone. Dean’s panic starts to subside, until Sam’s hand tightens around his and drags him under. Dean takes a deep breathe, and then he’s immersed.

Down, down down. Was the lake ever this deep? Dragged, almost to the bottom. But then it stops. Finally. Dean opens his eyes.

The water is still. And calm. And silent. The setting sun is a bright spot of light on the surface above. Everything feels like it’s standing still. Like a painting. Dean’s fears suddenly leave him. Then he sees his brother, above. The sun catches Sam’s scales and lights up his body. Dean can see the transformation now, nearly complete. But he’s not disgusted like he was before. Under the water, his brother is beautiful.

Sam glides towards him gracefully, touching his cheek. Dean wants to say something, but he can’t. He only opens his mouth. Air escapes his lungs. Sam presses their lips together. They kiss.


	6. Chapter 6

**_8 years ago_ **

Dean finds his kid brother balanced on top of the porch railing, gazing out at the calm surface of Bruin Lake. The sun is only beginning to rise, turning the sky pink, and the surrounding trees gold. Dean lingers behind the screened door to watch his brother, a flat silhouette slowly coming to life as the sky fills with light.

He’s been noticing Sam more. Not that Dean had ever forgotten about him. Sam is the first thing that Dean thinks about in the morning, and the last thing he has to check on before he can fall asleep at night. But protecting his kid brother was a habit he’d become blind to. Where’s Sam? Has he eaten? Is it time for school? Does he need a ride? Check, check, check.

But something was different now. Dean couldn’t say what. Maybe because Sam wasn’t a kid anymore. Tall now, they were same the height. And lean, no more baby fat. But Dean saw Sam like he’d never seen him before. Noticed his long mile-long legs. His taut chest. Noticed his hazel eyes, his sweeping lashes. His thin, bare neck whenever Sam jerked his head to throw back his bangs. His puckered lips when he pouted.

Proud, maybe, of his kid brother growing up into a handsome little devil. Even John comments when a cute girl comes calling, ruffling Sam’s hair and saying “atta boy”. Except that Dean has this awful tightness in his chest when he sees Sam with a cute girl. He can’t excuse it as brotherly protection, either. Not when being near Sam makes his heart beat faster. This loud thumping in his ears that screams _mine, mine, mine_. And this desire to pull him near and-

That’s as far as Dean gets before he pushes those thoughts into a watery grave and pushes open the screen door.

“You lookin’ for somethin’?” he asks, leaning on the railing where Sam stands. A hand on the back of his brother's calf to steady him is second-nature.

"I thought I saw something," Sam says, pointing to the west. “Out there, under the water. It surfaced, and then it dove back under.”

"You didn't see anything," Dean dismisses. "The Nyx isn’t in _this_ lake, dummy. It’s five miles north and it’s facing Dad. No competition.”

Sam considers this. “What if it’s something else?”

“Another Nyx?” Dean smirks. Unlikely. “Or another water spirit, come to drag you to the bottom of the lake?”

Dean says this lightly, like he's telling a fairy tale. Sam frowns at him. They both know these things are very real.

“You’d better hope not,” Dean continues. "Cause then I'd have to dive in and _rescue_ your skinny ass." He slaps the back of Sam’s thigh to emphasize the point.

Sam wavers but regains balance. " _Nuh-uh_ ," is his eloquent reply.

Dean bats his eyes and waves his arms. “Help me Dean! _Save me_!”

“Whatever,” Sam huffs. But he smiles, just a little.

“I could tire out any ol’ water spirit anyways, just by swimming laps,” Dean boasts. He always acts like a fool, when Sam's smiles at him. Can't help it, he feels like a million bucks. “With you slung over my shoulder, of course."

Sam rolls his eyes. “You know, you’re not nearly as impressive as you _think_ you are.”

Dean mocks offense. “ _Says who_?”

“Me,” Sam smirks. “I’m just as tall as you are now. And I’ve been working out. All I see you doing is _drinking beer_.”

“Oh-ho-ho. _Sammy_ !” Dean laughs. “Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is, huh? You, me, from one end of the lake to the next. Loser does laundry for _a month_.”

Sam’s pride stutters. “What...now?”

“No after you change into your pink bathing shorts. _Yes, now_!”

“I don’t think-”

“Put up or shutup, Sam! You’re either a damsel in distress or you’re the hero, now which is it? C’mon. We’ll go on the count of three. One.”

“That’s stupid, Dean, that doesn’t even make any sense-”

“Two.”

“How does seeing who can swim fastest prove-”

“Three!” Dean slaps the back of his brother’s thighs again and takes off, rounding the side of the porch, and running down the steps. He starts to remove his shirt when he hears a crash behind him. Dean turns around to find his brother has fallen into a patch of  poison ivy, beneath the railing. He winces as Sam stands, picking leaves out of his hair. His little brother’s gonna have one hell of a nasty rash later. “You okay there kiddo?” he shouts.

Sam glares, but he’s got all his limbs so Dean doesn’t let it deter their race. He strips off his shirt and kicks off his shoes as Sam stumbles out of the underbrush.

“You’re lookin’ a lot like a damsel there, Sammy,” Dean teases. “Try not to cry like a baby after I beat your ass, okay?”

The flash of anger in Sam’s eyes tells him their on. Dean races to the water’s edge, and dives in. The water is cold, but Dean warms up quickly as he swings and kicks his way across the lake, hearing his little brother close behind.

He reaches the farthest shore first, with Sam right on his heels. But he’s clumsy pulling away from the shore again. Sam catches up. They’re neck and neck as they head back to the cabin. Dean has been pacing himself, but this close to his brother he spurs himself on and manages to gain a small lead. Thirty feet from shore, though, he starts to tire. Suddenly, Sam has a burst of energy. He starts to pull ahead, fast, and Dean knows he’s not going to be able to make up the ground. Humiliating images of Sam lording his victory over him flashes through Dean's mind. He decides to cut this race short. Lunging forward, he wraps his arms around his brother, pulling them both under the surface. They spin. Sam struggles. Eventually Dean releases him, and they both rise to the surface. 

Dean laughs. 

“You jerk!” Sam accuses, splashing his brother with self-made waves. “I can’t believe you! You can’t stand losing to me _that bad_ , you have to go and _cheat_?”

Dean turns his head at the barrage of water. “I didn’t cheat!” he defends. “I wasn’t even serious about that race anyways.”

Sam makes a frustrated noise. Dean sees him eyeing the shore, but blocks his way. “It was just an excuse to get you out here, all to myself,” he teases. He doesn't mean it. Doesn’t think, anyways. But he’s surprised to see Sam turn pink. Or is that only a flush from their race?

“You’re stupid,” Sam mutters. Half-lidded eyes. Water beading on his lips.

“ _I’m_ actually the Nyx,” Dean continues. “Here to seduce you and drag you to your watery grave.” He puts his hands on his brother’s shoulders, and pushes down. He expects Sam to fight him off, to insult him, but he doesn’t. To his surprise, they both sink under the water.

Dean opens his eyes. Sam is looking up at him, his hair suspended around his face. Everything goes perfectly still for a second. Then a dark urge twists his heart. He becomes the monster Sam saw in the lake that morning. He becomes the Nyx. He pitches forward. He kisses his brother.

The surface erupts with the sound of their gasping. Sam and Dean emerge feet away from each other, taking deep breaths. They float on the surface, silent, staring.

_What just happened?_

Dean begins to panic. He realizes what he’s done, what he always intended to do. This thing in him was rising from the depths, rushing to the daylight.

Dean runs from it. Eight years ago he turned away in horror, leaving his brother behind. Eight years later, he does the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't intending on writing this flashback chapter, but I realized there would be quite a hole if I didn't. So *waves magic wand* here we are, enjoy some more angst <3


	7. Chapter 7

Dean wakes with a start when Deep Purple begins to play loudly. His knee slams into the front seat of the car, his elbow hits the window. An empty bottle of whiskey rolls off his lap and onto the floor. Dean curses, blindly fumbling for his phone. He swipes it off the cool vinyl seats of the Impala and hits the receive button.

“How far along is it?”

Dean winces. His head is split in two, but he can still recognize the voice.

“Bobby?” he croaks.

“No it’s the _tooth fairy_ ,” Bobby huffs. “Sorry to interupt your beauty sleep, _sweetheart_. But I got this deep, gut-feelin’, that you two boys are in a whole heap o’ trouble.”

Dean looks out the window. There’s a camper parked ten feet away from him with a young girl building a fort made of sticks in front. _Where the hell is he_? And then it comes flooding back. Sam. The lake. Their kiss. Dean running. Driving for hours. Parking at this campsite ten miles north and nursing a bottle of whiskey until everything turned black.

“What are you talking about, Bobby? Everything’s fine.”

Bobby grunts. “You wanna tell me your brother’s _not_ turning into a fish?”

Dean’s blood run colds. He sits up straight. “….why would you say that?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, boy. Call me up outta the blue and start asking a bunch of empty-headed ‘ _hypotheticals_ ’? That means one of you two idjits is in trouble, and my guess is it’s Sam. Otherwise it would be _him_ callin’, tryin’ to fish somethin’ outta me, an’ not you.”

Dean opens up the back door, steps outside. The fresh air hits him like a slap in the face. Good, he needs that. He has to cut off this conversation, Bobby shouldn’t be involved in anything this...messy. If only he’d listened to Sam about keeping this to themselves.

“Bobby if something were wrong, with Sam especially, I wouldn’t dance around it, would I?”

“Dunno. You tell me,” Bobby grunts.

“ _I am_. I only wanted some information about that case. And now it’s over. So me and Sam are heading south. Something about a creepy scarecrow and people missing.”

“So Sam’s there with you,” Bobby persists. “Two feet on the ground and everything?”

Dean peers down the campsite’s gravel road. He can see the highway through the trees. He needs to get out of here, back to the cabin. “Sam went out to get some breakfast,” he lies. “Okay, listen Bobby I got to go. We’re packing up and heading out soon. If we start now, we can get down there tonight. We can talk later.”

If Bobby has a response, Dean doesn’t hear. He hangs up the phone and looks up to find the young girl in front of the camper staring at him. “Uh, hi,” he says with a crooked, hungover smile.

The little girl drops her sticks and runs back inside the camper.

Dean sighs, tucks the phone into his back pocket. He climbs into the driver’s seat, sticks his keys into the ignition and waits for the engines to roar to life. He’s got to find Sam, so Dean pulls out of the campsite, and back onto the highway. It takes him an hour to get back to the cabin. When he does, the lights are still off. Everything is silent and dark.

“Sam?” Dean calls out, tossing his keys onto the kitchen table. He looks around for any signs of his brother: clothes, dishes, anything that’s been moved, but the cabin has been undisturbed since Dean stormed through it last night.

He searches the living room, the bedroom. Finally, he ends up back on to the porch where he sees Sam’s shoes and clothes are still in the dirt.

“Sam?” Dean approaches the lake carefully. His mind is turning, recording every footprint in the dirt. There: when they raced each other and dove into the lake. There: when Dean ran back out ( _like a coward_ , he thinks). But there’s no sign of Sam leaving the lake.

Now Dean starts to worry.

 _“Sam!”_ Dean shouts at the top his lungs. He stands at the lake’s edge, the water lapping at his feet. “ _Sammy_!” Dean calls, but the lake remains calm, placid. He can hear children playing in the distance.

Dean takes his phone out. This time he calls his brother. It rings twice and then Dean hears Sam’s ringtone, faintly. There’s a spark of hope as Dean follows the sound back inside. But he finds Sam’s phone sitting on the couch, next to his wallet, with no Sam.

Dean hangs up. _Don’t panic_ , he tells himself. _You didn’t want to come back here either, maybe he swam to the other side._

So Dean sets off on a hike around the lake. He finds hundreds of footprints, and drag marks too. The footprints are from families in their rented cabins, and the drag marks, from boats.  A part of Dean fears finding the same drag marks they’d discovered when this case began.

He makes a full circle, back at their cabin, empty-handed and with no further leads. The wellspring of fear starts to bubble over. There’s an end to this he doesn’t want to accept, but it’s one he has to investigate. On his perimeter walk around the lake Dean discovered their neighbor had a boat tied to a small dock. He retraces his steps, back to that boat, and climbs inside. He unties it from the dock, and pushes it out into the lake. Brazen, maybe, to steal a boat in the middle of the day, but Dean’s thoughts are focused on finding his brother, and nothing else.

He does another tour of the lake, looking for a sign, a sign of what he’s not quite sure. But once again he finds nothing. Lost, Dean rows into the middle of the lake, draws the oars into the boat, and sits, watching the surface of the water, collecting his thoughts.

Dean acknowledges this is his fault.

He’s the one that should be under the water right now, covered in scales. _A monster_. That’s what he is. A monster, preying on his little brother. What sort of person wants to kiss their brother, he thinks. Possess them? _What sort of awful, terrible, fucked up_ \-- Dean buries his head in his hands and groans.

That night, after the kiss, Sam broke out into a horrible rash. Dean knew it was the poison ivy, but he also knew it was a sign that what he had done was wrong. So Dean buried their kiss deep under the waters of Bruin Lake. He chose to repress the memory, act like it had never happened. It was the best thing for them both, he thought. Except that, somehow, he had infected Sam as well. And while Dean chose to forget, to protect himself, his little brother suffered. For eight years Sam suffered with the memory of that kiss, until some cheap trinket turned him into a monster as well.

No. He didn’t know that for sure. _There was still hope that they could stop this._

Dean looks up. At the far end of the lake he can see a girl and her friends water skiing. He watches them until he hears a small splash, near his boat. Turning around, he sees a familiar face looking up at him from the water. His heart leaps in his chest.

“Sammy!” he laughs, grinning from ear to ear. “There you are! Wow, kiddo. You had me worried. For a second I was sure you’d gone ugly disney princess on me!”

Dean waits for Sam to berate him, to call him a name, anything. But Sam says nothing. He stares up at him with gray-green eyes and silence. The water lapping at the boat is thunderous in Dean’s ears.

“Yeah, I get it, you’re still angry about last night,” Dean says. “I was a jerk, a huge fucking jerk. But what was I supposed to do, Sam, give you a hug and say everything was gonna be alright? This thing….it’s not normal. And I know, nothing about our lives is, but...c’mon., Sam. We can’t...you _know that_ , right?”

Silence. Dean notices Sam’s nostrils have been submerged this entire time.

“Sammy I need you to get into this boat,” Dean says quickly. “Take my hand, just-just take it, Sam-”

Dean extends his hand but his brother jumps back, pupils dilated, like a frightened animal. Sam  dives back under the water and a long, winding tail follows him.

Dean’s heart sinks to the bottom of the lake.

“Sammy?” he croaks, his hand still extended. The water settles, glassy and motionless, as if his brother had never been. “Sam? SAM!”

Dean plunges his hand into the water, waves it back and forth like he’s digging. He leans in as far as the boat will allow, but his brother is gone. His hand goes limp. Dean sits back in the boat feeling empty and numb.

So it finally happened. When he was too busy freaking out, Sam stayed in the lake and became….this? And then what. Was he going to hurt somebody. Or was another hunter going to rent their cabin and kill themselves a monster.

No. Dean doesn’t accept this. _Some stupid drawing on an amulet isn’t going to take his brother away!_

Dean removes his jacket, his shirt and his shoes and stands, balancing in the small boat. He scans the water. It’s dark, and black. His brother is in this lake. So he’s going in the lake too.

Dean takes a deep breath, and jumps. Cold water rushes past his ears, submerges him. He opens his eyes. The lake was beautiful last night but today the water is dirty, murky, even with the sun shining overhead it’s hard for him to see. _But he’s got to find Sam_. So Dean dives down as deep as he can, searching, holding his breathe until his lungs tighten and he’s forced back to the surface.

He does this several more times. The search takes him far out into the center of the lake. Now the sky is beginning to darken, and Dean is nearing exhaustion. He swims in place, trying to conserve energy. He hasn’t eaten anything since yesterday, and he’s still dehydrated from last night’s bender. He starts to think he’s wasting time, when Dean feels something big pass underneath him. The hairs on his neck and arms stand up. He waits.

Sam emerges again. Closer, than last time. Dean can see the scales on the side of his brother’s neck, covering long, red, horizontal lines. Gills.

“Jesus, Sam.” Dean can’t accept that this is real. He always thought he could protect Sam with a gun at his waist, and an arsenal of weapons in the trunk. “I need you to fight this,” Dean pleads. “Come on, Sam I just got you back. I just got you back, and Dad is missing. _I’m not gonna lose you too_.”

Sam doesn’t respond. He only watches Dean losing strength, bobbing up and down.

“What do you want me to say?!” Dean chokes, frustrated and struggling to stay afloat. “That I wanted everything a brother’s _not supposed to want_ ? Yeah, that’s right, I remember now. What I did, and how I ran. _But I came back, Sam_ . Whatever this thing is between us. We’re still blood. You’re still my little brother. And I will let myself _drown in this friggin’ lake_ before I give up on you!”

Sam’s tail flicks the water, he glides forward, and suddenly Sam is there, in front of his face. Dean smells the lake on him, pungent and strong. He can see Sam breathing through the slits on his neck. See every drop of water clinging to his hair, his skin, _his scales_.

“... _Sammy_.”

Then Dean feels something coiling around his leg, like a snake. It’s Sam’s tail, and suddenly, Dean realizes he could be danger as the coil tightens, and then yanks him under. Dean swallows water, fights his way back to the surface, spits it out. He gasps, staring at his little brother, helpless. “= _Don’t do this_ ,” Dean begs. “Sam, you gotta snap out of it!”

Another yank. Dean gets pulled under, deeper this time. Is this punishment for what he did, pulling Sam under the lake and turning him into this?

“Sam! Stop it! It’s me, your-”

And again.

This isn’t gonna end well. But Dean doesn’t know what to do. He told Sam that he remembered, acknowledged the craziness between them. Wasn’t that enough?

Dean kicks at the tail wrapped around his leg, only to get pulled under again. The water fills his lungs. He's not released and Dean starts to panic, thrashing about under the lake. Still, the tail holds him and the water chokes him, so he can't even call out for Sam. His head is light and dizzy. He starts to think if this it, if this is the end? And part of Dean is agree to accept that. Somehow, drowned by a monster of his own making seems right.

But before the end can come he feels lips against his and registers the distinct taste of fish. Sam is kissing him! Somewhere in his oxygen-deprived brain he's knows this is what's happening. Sam is drowning him, but also kissing him. What's left of his little brother's lips are pressed against his and Dean is swallowing Sam and the lake and the coming darkness as his lungs shrivel to a point.

Then suddenly it's over. The surface rushes back to him like a slap in the face and Dean gasps for air, coughing up the water in his lungs. He looks around for his brother, but finds himself floating on the surface, alone.


	8. Chapter 8

There’s a wooden clock on the wall. LIFE IS GOOD is written in the center. It counts down the seconds. _Tick. Tick. Tick._

Dean has a fresh bottle of whiskey. His body doesn’t want anymore but he forces it down. There’s got to be an easier way to do this, he thinks. Like a sledgehammer to the head. Or jumping in the lake. But whiskey is the nearest at hand, so he downs another shot. The glass hits the table. Dean scratches at the rash that’s spread across his arms and chest. Just a matter of time. _Tick. Tick. Tick._

His phone is out on the table. One last call. Two. One. More whiskey. Okay. He’ll start with one.

Dean dials the number. Four rings. Maybe he’s not even home. Wouldn’t that be funny? Have to leave a message. Hey Bobby come fishing up at Bruin Lake, it’ll be a hoot. But then, a familiar gruffness.

“How’s Illinois?”

Dean’s head swims in the forever between seconds. He’s not even sure what this call is about, for help, or a goodbye. But he has to start by admitting he lied. “...not in Illinois, Bobby.”

Bobby grunts, like that’s what he expected. “Still at Bruin Lake.” Statement.

“Yeah.”

“And Sam?”

“ _In_ Bruin Lake.”

The clock ticks loudly.

“How’d you know?” Dean asks. Bobby called it a gut feeling before, but Dean knows it’s more than that.

“When you called up and went on about this case of yours. I knew. If it hadn’t gotten you yet, it would.”

“But how did you _know_?” Not sure how to put it any other way.

“Known you boys a _long time_ ,” Bobby sighs. “And I ain’t blind. Wished to god I was wrong but...I ain’t blind.”

A cold shudder runs through Dean. So that’s it, then.

“Maybe I should’ve warned you, Dean. But...to be honest, I didn’t think you’d be the last one I’d be talking to. And then what do I say, if you don’t already know?”

Christ. Bobby thinks _he’s_ the innocent one. Dean’s cheeks are hot. He wipes away guilty tears. " _I could have saved him_.”

“How?” Bobby challenges. "Your brother couldn't keep his head above the water. Now the only way to straighten this thing out is if you jump right in with him."

" _Why shouldn't I_?"

"Cause then you're not really _savin'_ him from nothin', are you?"

And then it occurs to Dean that Bobby has resigned Sam to his fate. Having suspected something since they were young, their family friend expected this tragedy for a long time.

Dean gets angry. "He hasn’t suddenly stopped being _my brother_ , Bobby. I can’t _leave_ him!"

"Think straight, boy!" Bobby chastises. "I would go to the depths of hell and back for Sam, an' just about any hunter that your Daddy's helped out would too. But not if bringing him back meant..." _Tick. Tick. Tick._ "I don't blame Sam. The way John raised you two, made each other your whole worlds-no, I don't blame him. But there are just some things, boy. Lines in the sand that separate us from...everything else."

When Bobby mentions his father, Dean loses what little control he had left. "I can't leave him," he chokes. It's not his strength talking anymore but his weakness. " _I can't leave Sammy like that._ I don’t care what you think that makes him." Us.

"This curse ain’t nothin’ compared to what you two’ll be if you give in to this, Dean," Bobby warns.

But Dean only hear that there’s a chance to save Sam, so he takes it.

~~

Twilight. Gold, pinks and blues. Dean’s borrowed his neighbor’s property again and sits on the lake in his tiny rowboat watching the setting sun. It illuminates the fish heads floating in the bloody water, chummed, on the off chance it attracts Sam. And he doesn’t have to wait long before he feels something pass under the boat. The hairs on the back of Dean’s neck stand up. He knows he has company, but he doesn’t bother to check the water as he twines a long, thick rope around his wrists.

“Okay kiddo,” Dean says to the water, and to the air. “Remember that time when we were kids, and you got stuck on the roof? Not that Halloween where you were in your Batman costume’n jumped-still never gonna forgive myself for that. But like, months earlier. And I asked you to jump down, cause there wasn’t any other way to get you off without telling Dad and, well, you know how that goes...”

Water lapping up against the boat. Were any of those fish heads missing?

“Anyways, I asked you to jump, and you were scared shitless but you did it. I was down there with my arms out, and you looked at me, closed your eyes and you jumped. You jumped and I caught you kiddo. You knew I would right? Probably what made you try to fly that Halloween but that first time I caught you, so…”

Dean stands in the boat. He’s bound his ankles and wrists tightly. He checks it, makes sure even he can’t get it loose. Then he looks down at the water and takes a shaky breathe.

“I’m gonna need you to do the same for me now, okay?”

The sun’s last rays. The sky a gray blue. The water a dark black. _Here goes everything_ , he thinks, as he closes his eyes, and jumps.

Dean gasps as the water strikes him. Inhales. The lake floods his lungs. Instinct kicks in. He tries to swim back to the surface but the ropes around his wrists and ankles prevent him from swimming. Panic. He thrashes under the lake, but only swallows more water, sinking deeper and deeper.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

  
  
  



	9. Chapter 9

The bright morning sun crawls over Sam’s skin. Over his eyes, stirring him from sleep. Sam groans, turns his head away from the light and yawns, stretches, feeling the cotton sheets pull across his body. Blinking awake, Sam slowly determines where he’s at. Wood paneling from floor to ceiling, and the smell of lake water: he’s inside the cabin.

Suddenly Sam jerks upright. The cabin? He doesn’t remember coming back here. Sam tries to put the puzzle pieces together. He remembers racing Dean, tricking Dean into remembering, into kiss- _oh god he kissed his brother!_ Sam puts a hand over his mouth, mortified.

Then he sees his hand, clean, scale-free. He examines his arms and his legs. There’s not a trace of the curse left, not even a rash. Confused, Sam starts to doubt his own memory. He tries to think back further but all he can remember is their kiss, and the sudden urge to drown. Then, nothing.

Sam looks around for more clues and discovers his brother asleep, sprawled out in the bed next to him. The cabin’s twin beds have been pushed together. At the same time Sam realizes that he’s completely naked. Immediately, he gathers the covers around his waist, turning pink.

When Sam looks up again, his brother is awake.

“Hey kiddo,” Dean says.

There’s something different about the way Dean is looking at him, something that makes Sam’s heart flutter. “What happened?” Sam demands.

Dean stretches carelessly, props himself up on an elbow. Sam watches the sheets fall away from his chest, and wonders if Dean is naked as well. “You went full on Ariel, man,” Dean answers. “Friggin’ mute and everything.”

This a shock to Sam. He doesn’t remembering being a fish, and doesn’t like being the one with the memory blank now. “So I...transformed?”

“Yeah. Tail, gills, the whole package.” Dean grins at him. “If I was into that, we could have had our own little deep sea _adventure_ , you know.”

Sam looks away. “So how am I...normal, now?”

Dean chuckles. “ _Well_ I couldn’t make you normal, Sam. Best I could do was turn you back into my little brother,”

Sam rolls his eyes. He doesn’t appreciate his brother’s sense of humor right now. “ _Dean_ ,” he pleads.

Thankfully Dean sobers. “I tried everything I could think of," he explains. “But then I remembered how you’re my brother. How we’ve saved each other’s asses time and time again. So then I knew if I were in trouble, you’d be right there for me, and that would prove it.”

Sam blinks rapidly. “Prove it?” he asks.

Dean gets shy. He smiles, lowers his eyes, and shrugs. "Prove that there's no shame. That it's mutual."

Sam has to turn away. He thinks this must still be a dream. You don't just wake up and get everything you wanted in life.

“So I jumped into the lake,” Dean concludes. “And made sure I couldn’t get back out, without some help.”

That snaps Sam back into the moment. “What? _Dean_!”

Dean smirks, and waves away his little brother's concern. “Worked didn’t it? I knew you wouldn’t let this pretty face drown. Last thing I saw was a dark shadow heading towards me. I guess that was you. Next think I know, I woke up and we were both on the shore. Me, with like ten friggin’ leeches stuck to my legs. And you, in all your glory,” Dean motions to Sam’s current, naked, state.

Sam draws the sheets about himself tighter at the reminder. “I don’t understand,” he finally says. Sam’s been trying to break down what this all means, what Dean did to break the curse, but it doesn’t make sense to him. Because then that would mean... _but it couldn’t possibly._

“Sammy,” Dean says, interrupting his thoughts. “ _It’s okay_.”

Dean sits up and looks at him and Sam knows, _he knows_ that this isn’t the Dean that ran away from him. This is the Dean that came back for him. Would always come back. No matter what. Sam’s heart swells. Is this real? He doubts, hesitates. He’s spent his entire life trying to hide this one damning thing about him, and he doesn’t know how to let that fear go.

“How can it _be okay_ ?” Sam challenges, a lifetime of guilt suddenly wrung from him. “ _Dean we’re-_ ”

“-brothers, yeah, I noticed,” Dean answers quickly. “And it’s not normal, or healthy, or even human- I get it. But seeing this... _curse_ . What it did to you, to keep this secret inside. What it nearly did to _both of us_ . Well sorry to say if I just don’t give a flying _fuck_ anymore, Sammy. I’m not gonna make any more apologies. But I am gonna do this-”

Then Dean kisses his brother. Not in the dark, or underwater, but in the bright light of day. He kisses his brother, full on the lips. Sam sits there, frozen, afraid to move. He wants to run, just like Dean did. But his brothers lips are soft and lush, his kisses, persuasive. The urge to hide dissipates, and long-buried desires suddenly bloom. He throws his arms around Dean's neck and they kiss to prove his brother right, that there's no shame in this anymore, at least not to them.

They kiss, and there are years of lost time in their kisses - soft and gentle for when they were young and first infatuated with each other, rough with teeth. for when they were scared and in pain. They pour all of that lost time into a few moments. Tongues and teeth, tasting each other’s spit, clumsy and beautiful at the same time.

Their passion swells. Sam pulls Dean on top of him, relishing the weight of his brother, the pressure of their bodies together with nothing but a thin cotton sheet to separate them. But even though they're making up for lost time, they don’t rush. Sam digs his fingers into his brother’s hips as they move together. Desperate, at first, but the pace slows, becomes leisurely and laconic. There’s no more fear. They get to enjoy each other now.

The bed creaks, low and aching, like Sam’s desire. They pant, foreheads pressed together. Sam can feel his brother’s cock rutting against his. It makes his whole body ache. _His brother's cock._ The thought delights him. All those fantasies he dried to drown at Bruin Lake, he gets to savor them now. _My brother's cock_ , Sam thinks. _I want my brother's cock._

" _Dean_ ," Sam pleads, sending a shudder up his brother's spine that even _he_ can feel.

"Jesus, Sammy," Dean groans into his neck. "Can't just go... _sayin_ ' that kinna stuff."

"Your name?"

"Not like _that_!"

Sam laughs, and just like that he believes Dean when he says it'll be okay. Because nothing’s changed. They've been united in everything but this, so it when it finally comes to lips, and skin, and flushed cocks, it feels natural. Like lovers who have already been together for years and years. Like married couples. Like they shouldn't have waited so long to begin with.

"What do you want, Sammy?" Dean asks, finally stripping away the sheets.

Sam's used to that question when it involves cereal. But not with his brother’s body. His hands run up and down Dean’s side, between his thighs, fingertips gently brushing against Dean's dick. “Just...to touch you,” he admits, breathless.

“Easy lil slut,” Dean teases, but he lets Sam touch him, his own hand snakes down to grip Sam's cock as well. 

Sam closes his eyes and moans gently as Dean's gun-calloused hands stroke him. They explore each other, curious and painfully aroused. They've spent years together, have caught glimpses of each other naked, but this is the last taboo, to allow the other to see their cocks hard and flushed and to know it's because of their brother. 

"Keep expectin' somethin' to happen," Dean huffs, burying his head in the crook of Sam's neck.

His brother's hot breathe on his neck lights up every nerve in Sam's body. He's so happy, he feels like he might explode.

"Like my dick should fall of or somethin'," Dean continues.

Sam works his brother's cock a little harder, eliciting a grateful moan. "Or like God should strike one of us dead," he agrees.

But still, they don't stop.

“Roll over,” Dean suddenly commands.

Sam hesitates, but then turns over on to his side with an eager push from his brother. Dean slides up behind him and Sam can feel his cock, pressing between his cheeks. Sam arches his back, and Dean slides his cock between Sam’s thighs.

“Gonna make you mine," Dean says. "Starting today. No more confusion. How does that sound?”

Sam’s pupils are wide with arousal. He strokes his dick at the idea. “Do it,” he pants, arching his back again, pressing his thighs together.

Dean grunts in response, and wrapping his arm around his brother, he fucks into Sam’s thighs.

Sam feels Dean thrusting, feels Dean’s cock moving under him, brushing against his balls. Sam buries his head in a pillow, biting his lower lip to keep from groaning. He grabs his cock and tugs in rhythm to Dean. He imagines his brother really fucking him, splitting him open, when he feels two slick fingers slide inside of him. Sam moans in surprise. And when Dean curls his fingers and _hits_ something inside of him, it’s all over for Sam. He comes tugging at his own dick, spilling onto their rented sheets.

“Easy slut,” Dean repeats warmly. He’s still fucking into Sam’s thighs. He hasn’t removed his fingers.

Sam’s orgasm washes over him. He doesn’t have enough mental capacity to argue. He clenches his thighs, though, to give Dean more friction, and with a few more pumps of his hips, Sam feels Dean’s come shoot out from between his thighs. Feels Dean’s hips stutter against him, and Dean collapsing with a heavy sigh.

Sam hears the distant calls of people playing in the lake, the motor of a boat. They lay curled against each other, content. Sam shuts his eyes. He’s smiling. He thinks for the first time, in a long time, they might actually be happy.

“It’s kind of funny that a curse meant to shame us ended up...doing the opposite.” Sam laughs.

Dean breathes deep. He thinks of Bobby. And their Dad. And every hunter’s path they're going to cross. But Dean knew the road ahead would be rough when he jumped into that lake. He’d already made his decision.

“You don’t get it, Sammy,” Dean says, quietly, tightening the hold he has on his little brother, will always have. “This _is_ the curse.”


End file.
